With more than 1,700 schools already closed due to damage from armed conflict, the country’s teachers have gone on strike, desperate to be paid after one year, only adding to the country’s education woes.

Having not received a salary since October 2016, teachers decided to take action as a last resort in an effort to get paid.

The situation is affecting teachers who live and work in regions controlled by the Houthi movement.

Yemen is home to about 166,000 teachers, who are not alone in their struggle to be paid. The country’s public sector workers in the same regions have also been unpaid for a year.

In some areas, up to 90 percent of teachers have gone on strike in protest of either not getting paid or being paid too little. Many teacher received roughly $160 USD per month before salaries were suspended.

The Yemen Teachers Syndicate is an affiliate of Education International (EI).

Making matters worse, the government is now asking for unqualified volunteers to fill in for the striking teachers.

At least two million children are not in school.

In related news, the government recently became the 70th country to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration in advance of UN Security Council Debate on Children and Armed Conflict.

About IASWI

The International Alliance in Support of Workers’ in Iran (IASWI) was formed in January 2000, with labour endorsements, particularly from Canadian labour movement, to launch and organize collaborative international solidarity campaigns in support of workers’ rights and struggles in Iran. The lack of free and independent labour organizations, and the lack of the right to strike in Iran, have created great obstacles for workers in their struggles for the realization of their rights and demands. The working class in Iran needs the international support of the workers and their organizations in other parts of the world in its struggle.

Objectives

>>To support workers’ struggle in Iran for better working conditions and living standards;

>>To advocate for workers’ movement demands in Iran, including the right to organize free and independent labour organizations and the right to strike;

>>To strive for an absolute end to the systematic repression, persecution, imprisonment, torture, assassination and execution of labour activists and political opponents in Iran;

>>To promote the implementation and enforcement of internationally recognized human and workers’ rights and freedoms for all people in Iran.